48 API\IL 2, 1'32 ., ship at a tIme of tension like that!" "I hate to disappoint you, but they did. Everybody seemed quite happy as they loaded. The coolies even sang a good deal. In the small hours, toss- ing on my bunk, I should have pre- ferred a little less audible happiness and a little more dumb tension. I should probably have got more sleep if the bomhardment had actually begun at the time. However, as it was, I got up early and watched the process of untying and disentangling my ship from Shanghai." "It was day- light then, I gath- er, so presumably you could See the warships and the troops. " " 1 . d notIce none whatever. But there were three rival groups of lit- tle acrohat hoys who held my at- tention. They were wrapped up so thickly in dirty padded clothes that they looked like halls. Not content with this effect, each group formed itself into C0I11posite balls, rolling and wheeling and halancing about: six-spoked cart- wheels, three-headed 11?onstrositÎes, lad- ders, triangles, triumphal arches. One would hold another upside down, and thus simply comhined, they would turn somersaults, and alight on either end of themselves like tumbling toys. Their bodies had facetious tricks of the trade, hut their expressions never shared these jokes. At the end of each turn, a joke mechanically occurred. One boy would be left as though paralyzed, in the attitude of a hairpin, little hottom upward, little scarlet nose between ankles. There he was: frozen, cramped, oblivious to the end of the turn. The others would put their heads on one side to register jocose contempt for their colleague's absence of mind, or amusement at his dilemma. (But their bored chil hlained faces registered nothing at all.) Then they would give their afflicted friend a smart blow on the peak of the stern, causing him instantly to collapse flat on the ground, after which he would revert to the vertical and become a useful mem- ber of the troupe again. There was great rivalry between the troupes, but all seemed to owe tribute to one larger boy who, though performing no feats, could be seen wringing a percentage of the athletes' hard-earned coppers from their reluctant hands. I wonder :,:me what has happened to those little boys since. I hope they are all right Not much room for jokes in Chinese Shanghai now, no audience for those rotund boundings. Anyway, that was what r saw in Shanghai. Take it or I . " eave It. " W ELL Japan then. You had four' days in J apan. You must have something to say about feeling in Japan; you must have gath- ered something in the way of facts in Kobe or Y okohalna." "Facts. . . Oh, I know all kinds of facts about Ko- be and Yokohama. I know those cities with an almost ex- cessive thorough- ness, having once carried a letter of introduction to a particularly city- conscious citizen. .LL\t that time I could have told anybody what goods were sold on what floors of every de- partment sture in Kobe or \70kohama, what time the last train left Kobe for Osaka and how much that stretch of the railway had cost to build, where the fire engines of Yokohama had been constructed, why the trams use a little trumpet (or perhaps flageolet) as a warning, instead of a bell. But I real- ize that these are not the kind of facts that thrill. As for feeling, people in ] apan were feeling in Japanese, if at all. There was a certain concentra- tion of attention round all loudspeakers in the streets, but loudspeakers spoke Japanese, so the emotions they uttered bounced off my understanding like hail off an umbrella." "You did sense a kind of danger in the air, then? " "Oh, yes indeed I did. Oh, those bicycles! I became so nervous that my knees even now feel weak as water whenever I hear a bicycle hell. The Japanese are the most alarmingly pro- saic race, and yet-how strange!- bicycles still amuse them. The bicycle is the spangle on the useful, sober rohe of Japan. Bicycling is still a Rollick- ing Adventure there, and frightenIng female pedestrians of uncertain age is still well worth doing. E veryw here in the streets of Japanese cities, one may see grave, responsihle citizens hav- ing fun with bicycles. Police inspectors may be seen patiently practicing the art of standing still on their machines; well-known merchants fly along dar- ing themselves not to touch the handle- I .: ., . M :}f '.{:::: =:.;....,: &.,:::,,:::::. ? _ : - :..::. ,>>> ... X' : 2;; : .:::': *4Fi:l . :.:: n .:( ..:::.;." .... .: ....;. ....::::.::..:.... .. .:-: ... . : . .::t:ð. x W ' ,. I " 5t :' ?::(.: j: '.' '1 . ""bo ..; It. 'it :<<::;- 1 t 'ï t . ..0::...... ". . J !l :=:::: } . :..... :. '- <::,: < .. 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Misses' and Women's Sizes ÐE INNA F 1FT H A V E N U EAT 5"2. nd S T RE E T , .,.>x .... m